Assessment Of Public Transport User’s Socioeconomic Characteristics In Metropolitan Lagos: A Case Study Of Ikeja Local Government Area Of Lagos State

Description

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the findings of the study of socioeconomic characteristics of the users in metropolitan Lagos. Specifically, it provides detailed analysis of the public transport users, dis aggregated by gender, marital status, age, education level, employment, income, auto-ownership and household size, with a view to engender the identification of groups of passengers who exhibit similar behaviors. The identification of these groups can help establish regular patterns in the way passengers use public transit and characterize the demand accordingly. The average user was male (60.3%), aged 32.9 ± 0.289 years, with an average income of N57,140.55 ± 1,446.86 and household size of 4.92 ± 0.052 persons, having acquired 12.84 ± 0.119 years of formal education, traveling 25.479 ± 0.4307 kilometres daily in 110.29 ± 3.318 minutes on public transport on an average cost of N 712.83 ± 29.749. The paper concludes that without a clear understanding of these patterns, it would be difficult to make accurate demand forecast, necessary for service planning and policy formulation.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER PAGE

TITLE PAGE

APPROVAL PAGE

DEDICATION

ACKNOWELDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

CHAPTER ONE

• INTRODUCTION
• BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
• PROBLEM STATEMENT
• AIM AND OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
• RESEARCH QUESTION
• JUSTIFICATION AND RATIONALE FOR THE RESEARCH
• SCOPE OF THE STUDY
• LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
• PROJECT ORGANISATION

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

• INTRODUCTION
• REVIEW OF THE STUDY
• THE CHALLENGE OF URBAN MOBILITY IN LAGOS
• OVERCOMING LAGOS’ TRANSPORT CHALLENGE
• THE PROCESS OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT REFORM
• DESIGNING ORGANISATIONS FOR DIFFERENCES
• INFRASTRUCTURE AND OPERATIONAL IMPROVEMENTS AS PART OF THE BRI
• CHARACTERISTICS OF THE STUDY AREA

CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

• THE STUDYAREA
• RESEARCH DESIGN
• SAMPLING TECHNIQUE
• DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE
• INSTRUMENT
• VALIDATION OF INSTRUMENTS AND RELIABILITY
• DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE

CHAPTER FOUR

• RESULT AND DISCUSSION
• RESULT
• DISCUSSION

CHAPTER FIVE

• CONCLUSION
• REFERENCES

 CHAPTER ONE

1.0                                           INTRODUCTION

1.1                             BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Public transport refers to the means by which larger proportions of urban dwellers gain physical access to the goods, services, and activities they need for their livelihoods and well-being (Fitzgerald, 2012). Public transportation therefore plays a very important role in both the developed and developing world cities. It serves to reduce reliance on private car-ownership by providing an affordable alternative for urban commuters. Demand for public transport service is a direct consequence of the quality of urban living environment, and household, community, and social networks. It is therefore important to understand the characteristics of the public transport demand of the constituting households. Without a good understanding of the nature of the public transport users, it would be difficult to make usable demand forecasts, which is fundamental for public transport service planning and operation as well as policy formulation (Polat, 2007; Taylor & Fink, 2012). Demand for travel is basically a reflection of the commuters. These characteristics include the gender, age, marital status, level of education, employment status and types, income and household size among others. These factors affect demand (Tsai, Mulley, & Clifton, 2012).

Understanding the passengers’ characteristics can be useful in a variety of applications. It can be used to calibrate the performance of the public transport network, and forecast more accurately the levels of demand, make adjustment in the level of service delivery and accommodate variations in ridership across weekdays and seasons (El Mahrsi, Come, Baro, & Oukhellou, 2014). At city-wide level understanding, the socioeconomic characteristics of commuters can prove very valuable in evaluating public transport accessibility level and in detecting whether particular groups are underserved (El Mahrsi et al., 2014). Passengers’ travel habits relate directly to their socioeconomic characteristics.

Modeling public transport patronage requires an understanding of the socioeconomic characteristics of the users and their travel demand requirements. Many past studies have established the critical importance of socioeconomic characteristics of the users in the construction of public transport models (Adedayo, Amure, Adeaga, & Omenai, 2014; Atasoy, Glerum, Hurtubia, & Bierlaire, 2010; Aworemi, Salami, Adewoye, & Ilori, 2008; Ortuzar & Willumsen, 2011; Taylor & Fink, 2012).

1.2                                    PROBLEM STATEMENT

The relationship between public transporter and passengers has been the focus of many studies (for example, Dewees, 1976; Damm et al, 1980; Wolf, 1992; Singh, 2005). Some of the earlier studies returned positive relationship between transport and passengers towards their socioeconomic characteristics.

The urban areas all over the world offer a number of advantages in terms of concentration of people followed by demand for commercial transportation. Ikeja is a classical example of a city that has developed rapidly since 1976 when it became the Lagos State capital. Construction of roads increased substantially with the opening up of residential precincts that also benefitted from increasing demand for lettable spaces in commercial transport. Many private companies, retail stores, commercial banks aggregate in the metropolis to take advantage of opportunities afforded by locations near the seat of governance thus attracting complimentary services. This led to high concentration of vehicular and pedestrian movements especially along the access roads.

The roads exhibit a number of nodes and linkages to form networks of both arterial and minor routes along which commercial properties locate. Commercial users displaced residential users, causing sites to be at highest and best uses with concomitant increases in the values of commercial vehicles. Accessibility within the road network is affected by the compact nature of various routes that sometimes impede volume of traffic. The road network is made up of nodal points and links that determine the degree of connectivity and accessibility in the network.

1.3                                     RESEARCH QUESTION

Some pertinent questions to enable the study attain its stated objectives are as follows:

1. What are public transport user’s socioeconomic characteristics in Ikeja?

 

2. What are the spatial pattern and trend of public transport values in the study area?
3. What are the relationships between public transport and arterial road network in the presence or absence of other explanatory variables?
4. What are the socioeconomic characteristics of public transport?

1.4                  AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH

 

The aim of this research is to analyze the socioeconomic characteristics and other explanatory variables and public transport values in Ikeja, while the specific objectives are to:

1. Analyze the arterial road network pattern in the study area;
2. Examine the spatial pattern and trend of demand, supply and values of public transport in the study area;
3. Determine the relationships between public transport users and road network, in the presence or absence of other variables, in the study area;
4. Determine the socioeconomic characteristics of public transport users in ikeja.

1.5      JUSTIFICATION AND RATIONALE FOR THE RESEARCH

 

It is trite amongst earlier studies on accessibility in relation to property values that profitability and utility are determined by accessibility. The greater the accessibility of a location the greater the comparative advantage, and the greater the comparative advantages the greater the demand for property at the location. Lean and Goodall (1977), for instance, stated that urban areas naturally develop at nodal points in the transport network and those locations with good transport access to other areas have relative advantage over locations with poorer transport facilities and that urban locations having such relative advantages are likely to be where transport routes converge. Similarly, transporters believe that accessibility has great impacts on property values, with properties along major roads and at nodal points having greater values (Ogunsanya, 1986; Oduwaye, 2004; Omoogun, 2006). However, accessibility discussed in these studies was based on intuition without empirical basis to justify what relative accessibility advantages the locations have.

This study borrows techniques found useful in other fields like operational research, geography, transportation and urban planning to explain and analyze road network for purpose of determining the relative accessibility of each of the arterial roads. It is believed that the techniques used in these fields can be extended to studies in estate management, thereby making cross-fertilization of research ideas across various fields possible. In this regard, this research has become relevant in determining the relationship between arterial road network and values of public transport users in Ikeja.

In addition, it is essential to establish a technique that may be useful for determining relative accessibility of locations in the network of arterial roads. Even when relative advantages are determined, there is need to develop models that will be useful for predicting public transport users in Nigeria that will affect their socioeconomic characteristics.

A review of literature showed that studies on Nigerian intra-urban road network using the graph-theoretic concept to determine accessibility effects on commercial property values are scanty, available ones were on USA and U.K. This study will therefore contribute to empirical studies on intra-urban road network and its influence on commercial property values in Ikeja, Nigeria.

1.6                                        SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Roads is one the major factors that affects public transport users’ socioeconomic characteristics; it may be classified as international, inter-city or intra-city. International and inter-city roads are usually major or arterial roads, while intra-city roads are routes within a city and may be minor or major (arterial). The study focused on arterial roads in the intra-urban network of Ikeja. There are ninety roads in Ikeja out which thirty- seven are arterial. From the thirty-seven arterial roads in the study area, only twenty traverse the commercial axes while others serve institutional, industrial, and residential neighborhoods. This study therefore covered all major roads serving the commercial axis and inner areas of Ikeja to the exclusion of inter-city roads such as Lagos/Abeokuta Expressway, Oworonsoki/Apapa Expressway, Ikorodu Road, and Lagos/Ibadan Expressway that form rings around the study area.

1.7                               LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

The study focused on analysis of public transport users’ socio economic characteristics in Ikeja. It did not attempt to investigate the structural stability of the arterial road network or assess the methods and accuracy of methods adopted by respondents in fixing the values of public transport users in the study area. It simply analyzed and provides detailed analysis of the public transport users, disaggregated by gender, marital status, age, education level, employment, income, auto-ownership and household size, with a view to engender the identification of groups of passengers who exhibit similar behaviors.

1.8                                                         PROJECT ORGANISATION

The work is organized as follows: chapter one discuses the introductory part of the work,   chapter two presents the literature review of the study,  chapter three describes the methods applied,  chapter four discusses the results of the work, chapter five summarizes the research outcomes and the recommendations.